From Professor Browne’s Almanack, 1885.
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The Next Armada.
A Brief Chapter from the History of Macaulay Junior.
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In the City the agitation was fearful. None could doubt that the decisive crisis was approaching. It was known, from the second edition of the Times, that the joint Armada, carrying everything before it, was continuing its victorious progress up the Channel. Plymouth had fallen without firing a shot. Portsmouth had speedily followed suit. The former had found itself, at the eleventh hour, unprovided with a single gun. The latter, at the crucial moment, discovered that it was still waiting the arrival of its ammunition. When these facts, mysteriously whispered at first with bated breath, became, later in the day, authenticated by the appearance of succeeding editions of the morning papers, the public excitement knew no bounds. A hideous panic seized the Stock Exchange. “Goschens” went down to sixty at a single leap. Five well-known Stockbrokers went off their heads, and were removed in cabs by the police in violent hysterics. The Lord Mayor appeared on the steps of the Mansion House, and endeavoured to quell the riot. He was at once recognised by the mob, and pelted with Pass-Books.
But things assumed a most threatening aspect at the Admiralty. A vast multitude had assembled at Whitehall, and rendered Parliament Street impassable. There was an angry howl at the “Board.” The Police took the precautionary measure of closing the gates. The First Lord appeared inside the enclosure, and his presence was the signal for an ominous roar. He was deathly pale and trembling, but he managed to scramble up the balustrade, and gazed feebly down on the raving thousands below. He was understood to say that when next Parliament met it would be asked to appoint another Committee to inquire into the naval administration of the country. His speech was cut short by execrations, and he hastily withdrew. Ten minutes later it was understood that he had escaped by the back way over the palings into the Park, and was hiding himself from the fury of the mob in an unfrequented slum in Pimlico.
But while these events were transpiring in the Metropolis of the Empire, still graver issues were being arrived at on that “silver streak,” which, up to now, had popularly, but erroneously, been regarded as its sure defence. What had been left of the British Channel Fleet after its first disastrous encounter with the joint Armada off the Lizard had rallied, and was now awaiting the attack of the again on-pressing and advancing enemy, in what promised to be a decisive encounter for the possession of the Mouth of the Thames, in the immediate neighbourhood of Herne Bay. The Admiral, in his hasty retreat, had collected about the shattered remnant of his forces some auxiliary adjuncts. He had been joined by Her Majesty’s ironclads, Styx and Megatherium, and by the belted cruiser, Daffodil; but owing to the fact that these vessels, not possessing any guns, had had to put to sea without their armaments, the recent arrivals could scarcely be counted on by him as an addition to his fighting power in any pending action. Nor was he sure of his own ship. Her Majesty’s ironclad Blunderer, which carried his flag, was armed with four of the famous 43-ton Collingwood exploding guns, and though hard pressed in the recent engagement, he had not thought it wise to give the order to “fire.”
Such was the position of the British Admiral at the commencement of that fatal afternoon which saw the last blow struck for the preservation of the Empire. The fight commenced by a general attack of the enemy. But it did not last long. In a very few minutes seven of the British ironclads, including that of the Admiral, were blown up by the explosion of their own guns. The rest found that they were supplied with the wrong-sized ammunition, and were rapidly put hors de combat. Within a quarter of an hour of the firing of the first shot the action was over, and the last remnant of the British Fleet had practically disappeared. That evening the advance despatch boats of the joint Armada anchored off Gravesend, and 120,000 men were landed on the Kentish coast between Margate and Whitstable.
When the news of the disaster appeared in the evening papers, the panic, which had been gathering strength as the day progressed, culminated in fever-heat. Everybody was in the streets asking, with staring eyeballs, for the latest news.